Doggy Massage

Credit: wordpress.com

OK, I gotta' admit that at one time I definitely would have thought of massaging a dog as just a bit too woo-woo for me.  (Woo-woo is technical speak for new age.) 

That was before I had a really, really, ancient dog with whom I love spending any time that he has left on this earth pampering and making feel oh so good.

And man does he love it.  I mean, he even makes little happy noises as I massage his little old arthritic body.  And when I stop he looks at me like: 'Hey, I was enjoying that.  Don't try to short change me here!'

This is no regular petting session.  Oh no, my dog Parker likes a good deep rub down.  I figured this out when my husband was petting him kind of roughly one day and Parker really reacted positively to it.  You could honestly tell that the harder you rubbed him the more he loved it.

Now he will actually sit down beside you in a chair and push the entire length of his body up against your side to prompt you to start in with a massage.  Pets are funny that way.  They will get their message to you in one way or another, won't they?

Parker gets his doggy massage on whenever possible these days.  It leaves him feeling sooooo good!

All Kinds Of Growth

I'm finally seeing some signs of hope that we really will be enjoying some sunny weather here in the Northwest at some point.  The pink rhododendrons at the front of my house have exploded!

They are native plants that grow wild in many areas out here and have apparently benefited greatly from all the rain we have gotten.  I've never seen them bloom so much before!

Seeing this lovely display and reading some of the posts about peoples gardens, such as those at Middle Passages or Faith Love Kids and Me have inspired me to give planting some edibles a chance again.  When I was a kid we never planted any food plants and I always wanted to.  Then when I was newly married I tried a few but didn't have any idea what I was doing and I was not successful at all!  Now I have realized that if I just give the food crop plants much of the same care I give the flowers I do well with, then I'll probably see some decent results.  Yeah, I know- a real epiphany!  

Also, over the past long weekend, I took care of a funny little puppy for one of the people I work for.  She is a hairless Chinese Crested and looks like this:

She feels like an elephant and will only ever have hair on her head, tail and feet- kind of like a pony. 

At first we were a little put off by her appearance as you really can't imagine how different from an average dog she is without seeing her in person.  But within a couple of days I grew to like how warm her skin always is and realized that her personality is absolutely super!  As she got comfortable with us, she showed us how wild and crazy she can be and proceeded to run non-stop and go in fits about the house looking for the next thing she would chew!

On Monday night I got a call from my nephew Nathan's Dad.  He let me know that Nathan was in the Emergency Room because of a bike accident.  Nathan was riding on a bike trail and had just made it down a pretty steep hill when he hit a bump where a tree root protruded up into the trail.  Nathan took a major face plant and came up with a tooth protruding from his cheek!  At the ER it was discovered that he had 3 broken teeth while the doctors superglued his cheek shut!!!  After a few hours of worry and research we figured out that Nathan follows my slow growth pattern and his 3 teeth were only baby teeth.  (Because his Dad only got custody in December, we didn't know for sure.)  Whew!  What a relief.  I'm glad to report that no, I don't have any pictures of this and yes, Nathan is going to be fine and was in school showing off his cracked bike helmet on Tuesday.  A typical boy who says he will be more careful in the future. 

We'll see about that!